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Große Landschaft mit Tieren by http://www.wikidata.org/.well-known/genid/34ad6aebda92524efd967fc4d79afb11

http://www.wikidata.org/.well-known/genid/34ad6aebda92524efd967fc4d79afb11 · 1630-01-01

Roelant Savery's \"Große Landschaft mit Tieren\" (\"Large Landscape with Animals\"), painted around 1630, imagines a impossible peace: a lion rests in the right foreground while a stag with burning antlers stands at center, surrounded by birds, a monkey, and creatures from across the known world. It is a paradise built from curiosity and close observation.

The painting rewards patience. Start with the stag's antlers catching the light, then find the dark horse silhouetted against the sky on the upper right. Trace the white swans glowing against the shadowed ground. And do not miss the small monkey clinging near the left trees, a tiny, easy-to-miss figure that signals Savery's encyclopedic ambition to catalog every creature he could.

Savery worked in Prague for Emperor Rudolf II, who kept a menagerie of exotic animals, lions, dromedaries, and reportedly a dodo. Savery painted from life, and his dodo images later became scientific documents after the bird's extinction. This panel was among his most ambitious animal landscapes. In the 1970s, it survived a fire at a private collection, and in 2012 it sold at auction for over $2.2 million.

The animals Savery gathered here never shared a forest in life. But they share this one, and they share the same light. Does that feel like a dream, or a promise?

Details

This is a peaceable kingdom, a world where predators forget to hunt.
This is a peaceable kingdom, a world where predators forget to hunt.
A stag stands at the center, his antlers burning in the light.
A stag stands at the center, his antlers burning in the light.
A monkey clings to the far left edge. He is the smallest witness.
A monkey clings to the far left edge. He is the smallest witness.
Look at the luminous sky. That brightness is a survivor.
Look at the luminous sky. That brightness is a survivor.
The horse's silhouette against the bright sky creates a strong tonal contrast and elevates its status in the hierarchy of beasts.
The horse's silhouette against the bright sky creates a strong tonal contrast and elevates its status in the hierarchy of beasts.
Transcript

This is a peaceable kingdom, a world where predators forget to hunt. A stag stands at the center, his antlers burning in the light. The artist packed nearly every creature known to Europe into this forest. A monkey clings to the far left edge. He is the smallest witness. In 2012, this painting sold at auction for $2.2 million. But forty years earlier, it was nearly destroyed in a fire at the collector's estate. Look at the luminous sky. That brightness is a survivor.